Matthew 15:3, 6, 14-19 (RSV) He answered them, “And why do you transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? . . . [6] . . . for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God. . . . [14] Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” [15] But Peter said to him, “Explain the parable to us.” [16] And he said, “Are you also still without understanding? [17] Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and so passes on? [18] But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a man. [19] For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.”
Steve Skojec (his words in blue throughout): “I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life trying to figure this crap out. The situation is so bad that I’ve been tempted at times to just throw up my hands and walk away from the Church because I don’t know how an institution that’s indefectible could be so far off track.” (Twitter, 4-18-20, 3:54 PM)
Steve Skojec:“After nearly 3 decades online, I’m absolutely convinced that online Catholic behavior is often the worst representation of our faith, & online trads may be worst…” (Twitter, 1-31-20)
Steve Skojec runs the radical Catholic reactionary site One Peter Five. By all or many appearances, and his own words, he scarcely even believes in the Catholic Church as a divinely guided institution anymore. He may not openly state this on his site (or, water it down), but he seems to honestly offer his actual (bottom line) doom-and-gloom, ultra-pessimistic beliefs on his Twitter page, which is (like most Twitter chat) mostly between friends in his reactionary echo chamber, but is also public material (it ain’t private email).
A Catholic apologist like myself, on the other hand, is “gullible” and “naive” and “pie-in-the-sky” enough to actually enthusiastically believe, in faith, that God guides His infallible and indefectible One True Church: warts and all / tons of sinners in her fold and all (as it’s always been). I’m “old-fashioned” that way. I’ll wear that label with honor. I actually accept all that Holy Mother Church teaches, with sublime authority: including about her own perpetual protection from theological error.
The most shocking element of Steve’s pessimistic utterances is his virtual belief (but not quite) in the defectibility of the Church. He’s hanging on by a thread. One can only live under such tortuous cognitive dissonance and self-contradiction for so long. It’s very difficult to keep following something one no longer believes in. No one wants to do that. As one of the many thousands of converts from Protestantism, I know this process myself very well.
A person in such a situation has to conclude at length either that there is no worldview that offers hope (nihilistic despair), or switch over to one that they believe does have some sort of hopeful solution to sin, concupiscence, the meaning of life, and life’s problems. It looks like the Catholic Church has ceased being the latter for Steve. But he sure highly compliments the breakaway (even more) reactionary group SSPX (which is still Catholic, so the canonists tell us, but in an “irregular” situation as regards communion with the Catholic Church).
I will now take a quick survey of what Steve believes about the defectibility of the Church and the “New” (Ordinary Form) Mass:
1) Indefectibility of the Church: according to Steve, the Catholic Church no longer promulgates “the faith”, whereas SSPX does (4-17-20, 12:53 AM). The Church “perverts” the faith, while SSPX is “keeping” it (4-17-20, 1:07 AM). The post-Vatican II Church no longer teaches the received Catholic tradition of “our fathers” (4-17-20, 1:24 AM), and instead holds to beliefs contrary to our “entire theological . . . patrimony” (4-17-20, 1:25 AM). Every single priest after Vatican II is a “modernist”; indeed, all things and people in the Catholic Church have been “infected” by it (4-17-20, 2:39 AM). Accordingly, the Church has become “completely corrupt” (4-17-20, 3:35 AM), promulgates “sewage” (4-17-20, 2:42 PM), and has “deviated” from the truth (4-17-20, 3:02 PM). Things are, in fact, so bad that Satan (the “enemy”) has “control” of both the pope and the Church (4-14-20). The Church is rabidly determined to follow the course of “killing the faith” (4-20-20, 4:00 AM), has gone “schizophrenic” (4-20-20, 3:59 AM), has “betrayed us all” (4-20-20, 3:54 AM), wants us all “in limbo” (4-20-20, 2:30 AM) and treats orthodox, observant Catholics as “evil” (4-20-20, 2:29 AM). No matter how much ol’ Steve — our modern-day Athanasius — heroically fights for good and the truth in this miserable, pitiful Church (instituted and preserved by Our Lord Jesus Christ), “nothing changes” (4-20-20, 3:46 AM), and the Roman “apostasy” continues to grow (4-20-20, 3:40 AM).
Maybe (mere speculation, mind you) the man is drunk when he says all these ridiculous things (many of them in the wee hours of the morning). That would be the most charitable explanation. He gets rid of all his inhibitions and expresses what he really believes.
My friend Paul Hoffer commented on these sorts of utterances from Steve:
So he thinks Pope Francis is even worse than folks like John XII, Urban VI, Alexander VI, Boniface VIII, or Julius III, why? Doe he think that the gates of hell have prevailed? Or maybe he thinks the Holy Spirit went on vacation or has abandoned the Church. Isn’t he special? He must not have read Dante who had no problem sticking popes in hell. He apparently is unaware that the Church has always come out on top after suffering through a bad Pope. Why does Mr. Skojec think Francis special in that regard?
2) Ordinary Form / “New” / Pauline / “Novus Ordo” Mass: it “diminishes” the faith of Catholics (4-17-20, 1:10 AM). It “undermines” and is “damaging” to orthodox Catholic beliefs (4-17-17, 1:21 AM) and the faith of the “majority” of Catholics, because it’s “evil” (4-19-20, 11:34 PM). It’s “fundamentally disordered” (4-17-20, 2:34 AM) and (even when not subject to abuse or celebrated improperly) is opposed to “propitiatory sacrifice” (4-17-20, 6:24 PM). If Steve were required to attend this Mass (no option for the extraordinary form) he would have “left” the Catholic Church (4-17-20, 2:45 AM). Indeed, this Mass is “inherently destructive” (4-18-20, 3:52 PM) and “harmful” (4-18-20, 3:56 PM). “Abuse” is part of its very “essence” (4-19-20, 6:15 PM).
How does one evangelize with such a cynical, jaded, hopeless worldview? What good news, pray tell, is there to share with the unbelieving world and non-Catholic Christians? Where is the joy and peace, that Scripture proclaims will be the wonderful gift of every indwelt Christian?:
Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, [23] gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law.
Philippians 4:8 Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
In high contrast to all that, Steve’s attitude is, in effect or logical reduction:
“Hey, why don’t you leave your vibrant evangelicalism and come to my Church? It’s completely corrupt, is run by Satan, and constantly pumps out modernist sewage; our leader is an idiot-heretic, 99% of its religious services are fundamentally disordered, damaging, and inherently destructive, and me and my reactionary buddies moan and groan and complain and spread false rumors about all this junk day and night online. Who could possibly resist that?”
“You want the fullness of the traditional, historic Catholic faith? Don’t go where I go (the Church that Jesus Christ built on the rock of St. Peter), but there’s this place called the SSPX . . . “
Pretty ludicrous, isn’t it? But this is literally what consistent reactionary despair — thoroughly reflected upon, based on its own constantly asserted premises and conclusions — leads to. I wrote quite a bit in critique of the pessimist / endlessly complaining / doom-and-gloom reactionary trademark way back in 2002 and earlier, as part of my book, Reflections on Radical Catholic Reactionaries (chapter 2: “Faith and Optimism vs. Pessimism”; line breaks are breaks in the text):
Do reactionaries have their heads in the sand? Like the Pharisees of old (the legalists and hyper-reactionaries of that time), they fail to discern the “signs of the times” (Matthew 16:3). They will tell us how many liberals and heterodox Catholics are still around, and point to the scorched earth left in their wake. Well, so what? There were many liberals around during the Catholic Reformation and the Council of Trent, too. It so happened that most of them had left the Church, rather than remain in it (though, of course, many liberals are leaving the Church today). They were called Protestants. There were liberals during the Councils of Nicea (Arians), and Ephesus (Nestorians), and Chalcedon (Monophysites), and Vatican I (Old Catholics).
Times of great revival and reform can occur even while heterodox liberals and heretics remain a problem. God is not bound by our timetables, desperation and alarmism, limited perceptions, and conceptions of things. He simply ignores the liberals and goes about His business. They are merely pawns in His Grand Scheme, just as the Egyptians or Assyrians or Babylonians or Persians or Greeks or Romans or Nazis or Soviet Communists were (all immensely powerful in their heyday). They are not in the middle of the Divine Plan, as we orthodox Catholics are, because they do not seek to do His will. They have rebelled, and are therefore, “out of the picture.” That is why they are already irrelevant, and destined for obsolescence in the dustbin of history, like all other heresies and schismatic sects (where, for example, are the Marcionites or Albigensians these days?).
Liberalism, too, will disappear as any sort of major influence, because it has no life in itself. It can’t reproduce itself because it is the counsel of despair and disbelief. The very next generation will largely reject it. These things are absolutely certain, and are seen in decreasing membership rolls of “mainline” denominations. The demise (the real “auto-demolition”) may take a while yet, but it will occur, because God is not mocked.
Complaints, undue criticism, condemnation, disobedience, dissent, bickering, moaning and groaning, silly and self-important pontifications, whining, waxing eloquently cynical: that’s what we so often see in the reactionary movement. It’s extremely unseemly, unedifying, and unappealing.
It is denied that the reactionary position is characterized by an attitude of pessimism and lack of faith. “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34). One reads the sort of comments reactionaries habitually make, and one is more than justified in arriving at certain conclusions, if words mean anything at all. If individual proponents of these viewpoints happen to have a joyful heart, then they would do well to include some positive remarks in public also. How about an article once in a while like “What’s Good in the Church?”? A gloomy “quasi-defectibility” outlook is contrary to a truly Catholic faith in God’s guidance of His Church. Many reactionary writings do not convey this sort of hope and sunny optimism at all.
The alarmist reactionary rhetoric gets worse and worse, as with all conspiratorial schemes and theories trumped-up in order to explain things that people find themselves unable to comprehend or understand (therefore, they disobey and lose confidence in their ecclesiastical superiors). Like Job’s comforters, reactionaries fail to see that God is at work: though mysterious and inexplicable His ways may continue to be. A little reading of Church history (the bleak periods) might do wonders. Catholics take the long view of history; they are not bound up by the fads and peculiarities and zeitgeist of any particular time period. This is one of the glories of the Church; one of the things that so attracts converts to it.
A certain harmful and deleterious “spirit of reactionaryism” runs contrary to the spirit of obedience to the pope and Church authority, and to a bright, optimistic, hopeful faith (which martyrs possess in the very worst of circumstances). The doom-and-gloom mentality, exclusivistic orientation, and tendency to resort to conspiratorial explanations for things one is unable to comprehend also typifies certain strains of political conservatism, and “fundamentalist” branches of Orthodoxy and Protestantism.
I’m here in the Church because it taught against contraception, like all Christians did before 1930. The fact that many Catholics disbelieve the teaching was absolutely irrelevant with regard to my decision to convert. The doctrine was correct. The same applies to divorce and abortion. This is what attracted me to the Church, because moral laxity can be found anywhere (original sin). But true, traditional, unchanging Christian moral teaching is only found in its fullness in one place. That’s what I had been seeking for, for ten years as a serious Christian. I found it, and here I am, and quite glad to be here, and not at all constantly “troubled” like so many reactionaries seem to perpetually be. It must get very tiring. Converts have found the pearl of great price. Reactionaries seem to want to prove that the pearl is really a jagged, stinky lump of coal, or worse.
Faith and perseverance must enter in, in such troubled times in the Church. We need to understand that Church history repeatedly shows this pattern; that even the early Church had tremendous scandal and hypocrisy, and — above all — that the Church is indefectible. That’s why the orthodox Catholic remains forever an optimist. We readily acknowledge that modernism is rampant; we deny that it can ever overthrow the Church. One must have faith. Reactionaries ought to read the book of Job. Tough times afflict the Church as well as the individual. It is to be expected. Why does that surprise reactionaries? Liberalism, heterodoxy, and unbelief are never surprising, but a Church that remains orthodox despite all is perpetually a delightful and heartening “surprise.” The glory of the Church (like that of the saints) is not that it has no problems, but that it always sees a way through the problems. It always conquers them.
So God has given up on His Church? Even our Lord Jesus had His Judas, and St. Paul had his Corinthian church. God saw fit to include in the ancestry of Jesus a harlot (Rahab) and a murderer and adulterer (David). There was no “golden era,” if by that one means a period without serious ecclesiastical problems. I think reactionaries continue to believe in original sin, and the world, the flesh, and the devil. The Church is to be reborn in the caves and backwaters of Pharisaical reactionary gatherings? I think not.
The liberals are dying out. We ought to just forget about them, just like Merlin did to Queen Mab in the Arthurian legend. They will be irrelevant in another fifty years at the most, just like the buffoons of the so-called “Enlightenment” and French Revolution and the Communists and Nazis are today. If God mocks the fools and despots of the world, how much more so in the Church?
What we have seen is that the Catholic Church has heroically and magnificently upheld traditional doctrine and morals, while virtually every other Christian group has caved in, to one degree or another.
The Church is dealing with these problems now. Things take time. The pessimist always concentrates on present miseries, while the optimist, idealist, or person exercising faith look at the good things that will come in the future, as the present decadent cycle comes to a close and the new revival starts to gradually pick up momentum. We need only look back at Church history to see what is coming next (excepting Christ’s return, of course). If the Second Coming isn’t imminent, then it is almost certain that major revival will come in this century.
The indefectibility of the Catholic Church and its divine protection from the Holy Spirit is our grounds (in faith) that things will get better, and are, in fact, not as bad as they seem in the first place (at the deepest, spiritual level). Joy rests on grounds other than circumstances. Joy comes from inner peace of the soul, by the grace of God, and a Christian can possess it even in a concentration camp, or with incurable cancer. The saints even truly embraced suffering with joy, as a privilege and honor and a way to help save souls. I am referring to the optimism of the eye of faith: the assurance that God knows what He is doing, and that history has a purpose: that all things are in His Providence, though He obviously doesn’t will all things in His perfect will. He allows bad things, and then uses them for His own purposes. The modernist crisis is no different than anything else; God uses it for His benevolent ends, and is not mocked. Doom-and-gloom and Chicken Little pessimism are contrary to faith and the true Catholic spirit.
I suspect that a lot of the reactionary analysis of the crisis in the Church comes down to temperament. Some people are of a state of mind and emotional make-up that they are naturally pessimists. They may struggle with depression or find it difficult to be of good cheer, with regard to day-to-day life. They might be going through any number of things that are legitimately troubling. Sensitive souls will be harmed and troubled more by evil and “things gone wrong” than less sensitive types. We mustn’t pretend that temperaments and personality types have no effect on our worldviews. They certainly do. Nevertheless, I think there are real, objectively measured grounds for optimism with regard to the Church situation, other than simply a feel-good delusion based on mere temperamental factors and circumstances.
If we were to talk to someone in the dark cultural days of the collapse of the Roman Empire, we could tell them (with our perfect hindsight), that God would build up a new and better civilization, which indeed happened (Christian Western Civilization), and that our citizenship is ultimately not of this world in the first place (as St. Augustine argued in his classic, City of God). Jesus said the same thing: “My kingdom is not of this world.” It’s not that these things pose no problem or inner conflict at all (I’m very troubled about the descent of America into a moral sewer and sound-asleep intellectual stupor), but that the Christian has a frame of reference that transcends them and offers ultimate hope. We are to work within our cultures to do what we can to transform and “baptize” them. That was the aim of Vatican II, but reactionaries ignore that by looking at historical events after it, rather than the content in it.
Modernism / liberalism is already undone. The fatal blows have been struck. The implementation will take a little time (basically, people have to die off, like the wicked generation in the Exodus under Moses); that’s all.
We’re in a bleak period, having taken the brunt of liberal nonsense and heterodoxy (teetering and dazed, but still afloat and very much alive). There have been many such periods. There were popes who went whoring around; there were horrible massacres in the Crusades, which we are still trying to live down. There was astonishing ignorance. The worst periods were always followed by glorious periods. The 10th century was followed by St. Dominic and St. Francis of Assisi and St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Catherine. The Borgia Renaissance popes and numerous clerical abuses of that time (partially leading to the Protestant Revolt) were followed by St. Robert Bellarmine, St. Ignatius Loyola, St. Francis de Sales, St. Teresa of Avila, and the glorious Catholic Reformation. I submit that reactionaries have a pronounced lack of understanding as to precedents for this sort of thing and how God brought His Church out of them, every time, without exception. Invariably, the best centuries follow the worst. So if that model holds, what is likely to happen in the 21st century? Have reactionaries learned nothing from previous Catholic history (or are they just unaware of it, prior to their own lifetime, as so many are)? It’s human nature to think that our own period is the worst ever (not to deny that, indeed, very terrible and troubling things have happened in our age).
One reactionary with whom I was dialoguing believed that the Catholic Church “may not recover for a thousand years, or ten thousand” (from the crisis of modernism). This person (and anyone else who believes the same) lacks faith in God and His promises, and can’t see any of the good things that are right in front of him. Somehow reactionaries believe that this crisis will take 10,000 years rather than a hundred or two to resolve. Even the liberals aren’t that confident about their supposed “victory.” Quite the contrary! There is no question that this mentality is full of the bleakness of utter despair for the Church, and lacking much of a sense that God is in control. Why be a Catholic at all, with such a low view of the Church? I don’t get it. I would never have converted if I believed this. There would be no reason to. So the reactionary view turns out to be “counter-conversion” (just as the liberals offer no reason to convert to the Church — they don’t urge it at all). If there were no hope for any earthly church then I would have stayed in my little self-chosen denomination, believing that one is just as good as another.
Reactionary lamentations about the state of the Church are scandalous and highly imprudent. Even if some few of their analyses are correct, it is not right to air dirty laundry in public, just as it is highly inappropriate for a married couple to loudly argue about their personal problems in a public restaurant.
The fabulous joy, hope, and overwhelming feeling of “coming home” which I — along with many converts — have experienced upon entering the Catholic Church, could not last a day if I were to adopt the pessimistic, “o woe is me” views that reactionaries manage to hold.
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Photo credit: [public domain / Pikrepo.com]
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